Chris Magwood - Making Better Buildings: A Comparative Guide to Sustainable Construction for Homeowners and Contractors

Praise for

Making Better Buildings

Making Better Buildings is essential reading for home builders, owner-builders, or anyone interested in hiring a contractor to build their green dream home. This book is full of useful, up-to-date, cutting edge information and is amazingly thorough and easy to read. It will help readers make the best decisions possible regarding energy efficiency, cost, durability, health, embodied energy, labor requirements, and so on. Quite possibly the most valuable book ever published on green building!

Dan Chiras, Ph.D., director, The Evergreen Institute (www.evergreeninstitute.org) and author, The Natural House, The New Ecological Home and The Solar House

Comparing contemporary building technologies based on criteria such as embodied energy or energy efficiency is a huge job a job that holds most contractors and owner-builders back from making informed choices. Chris Magwood has saved us all thousands of research hours with Making Better Buildings. This book is not only a tool for the builders of today, but is a marvelous textbook for the young, emerging building professionals of tomorrow.

Emily Niehaus, Founding Director of Community Rebuilds

At last: clarity! There are more and more people all over the world who are discovering the joy and satisfaction of building for themselves with natural materials. Very few, however, are also able to teach, communicate and inspire those around them. Of that precious few, Chris Magwood is at the top of the list; his delight and mastery of the subject hums in every page. Whether you want a broad overview, or access to high-quality, practical information on specific subjects, this is the book for you.

Bruce King, PE, Director, Ecological Building Network

If youre drilling deep into sustainable building and want more than superficial details, let Chris Magwood be your guide. Making Better Buildings will help builders and homeowners quantify the green building process, and better understand the impact of their decisions.

Scott Gibson, Green Building Advisor

Chris Magwoods new book is exciting news for builders and homeowners everywhere! This includes people who havent even heard yet of the ideas that Chris lays out with such accessible knowledge and clarity. As one of the most knowledgeable and experienced ecological builders in North America, practicality and efficiency is one of his prime concerns. As one of the leading natural builders in the world, his affordable ideas are offered for all scales, within his broad and creative vision.

Mark Lakeman, Communitecture Architecture & Planning, and cofounder, The City Repair Project, Portland, OR

Based on Chris Magwoods considerable experience of sustainable buildings systems, this book provides invaluable guidance for builders, designers and those thinking of building their own home. Stripping away the hype, the book provides a rational and balanced assessment of alternative options for the major components of a building. It is particularly valuable since it includes a wide range of criteria such as cost, durability, code compliance and labour intensiveness together with environmental criteria, which make it a highly useful decision support tool for many sustainable building projects. Also, we are encouraged to get beyond the bickering about different systems at the micro level and to focus on the bigger picture, macro issues, when choosing building components and systems which will lead to significant change.

Professor Mark Gorgolewski, Ryerson University

Making Better Buildings belongs in the library of every designer or builder in the green building business and should be read by every owner planning a new home. This is not simply green building this is the future of construction! Chris Magwood has clearly described the pros and cons of the most viable natural building techniques and places them in context to create a tool that is timeless. All of the systems reviewed have the promise of significantly reducing the environmental footprint of construction.

Jeff Ruppert, P.E., structural and civil engineer, and publisher, The Last Straw Journal

Ever wondered about the many shades of green in Green Building? The book you hold in your hand not only walks you through the vast array of techniques, written by one of the worlds most experienced green builders and educators, it also provides you with all the information necessary to compose the shade of green which suits you best. The information gathered here about issues such as techniques, embodied energy, health aspects are unique in the world, and is guaranteed to make this book the leading reference book for environmentally concerned building planners for years to come. Excellent work.

Max Vittrup Jensen, consultant, and director, PermaLot Centre of Natural Building

Were often asked to recommend books to guide people along the path to building their own natural home. The list of books is quite short, but with Making Better Buildings it just got one important book longer.

Oliver Swann, naturalhomes.org

This book is a must read for anyone trying to demystify the myriad of green building options. Chris Magwood packs this book with scientific data plus his unique hands-on experience. The result will leave every reader with a clear understanding of the benefits and challenges for a variety of super eco-friendly building methods.

Sigi Koko, natural builder, and founder, Down to Earth Design www.buildnaturally.com

Chris Magwood offers a refreshingly objective analysis of technologies from foundations to finishes, informed by a very clear set of criteria that allows the designer or builder to compare and select the correct choice for their project. Where other books offer biased opinions, cursory overviews, or limited perspectives on building options, Making Better Buildings presents detail-rich, data-driven, experience-verified, field-tested solutions for every building component. This book is an invaluable resource for every building professional and motivated prospective owner seeking a trust-worthy source for information to help inform their practice. The name says it all!

Jacob Deva Racusin, author, The Natural Building Companion and co-owner, New Frameworks Natural Building

Someday all buildings will be built sustainably; Making Better Buildings provides an expert compass for getting there. A must for any sustainable building library.

Martin Hammer, architect, lead author of the Strawbale Construction appendix for the 2015 International Residential Code, and co-director, Builders Without Borders

Its a tall task to make the complex set of green building choices accessible and interesting and Chris Magwood has done it well. As a teacher, and a systems and building consultant, Id say this book ranks up there as one of the top three green building reference books. And its the only one that covers the variety of building systems from foundation to roof so well, with enough building science, rationale and hints of philosophy to keep it beside your desk rather than the bookshelf.

Gord Baird, Eco-Sense (ecosenseliving.wordpress.com)

If youre about to embark on building a new home, whether youre a professional or homeowner, this manual will help you discover the materials most suitable for your location and budget, and that do less damage to the environment than many standard materials.

Cathy Rust, BE CGreen (becgreen.ca)

Copyright 2014 by Chris Magwood.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh. All cover images by Daniel Earle.

All interior photos by Chris Magwood, unless otherwise noted.